CLEVELAND - Summer is not even here, but presidential politics are sizzling. A new Real Clear Politics poll shows President Barack Obama with a razor-thin lead of 45.5 percent to 43.6 percent over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Real Clear Politics obtains its results by taking the top 10 news media polls from across the country and averages them together.

NewsChannel5 anchor Chris Flanagan sat down with WEWS political analysts Lee Weingart, a Republican, and Peter Lawson Jones, a Democrat. Among the topics, the presidential polls, when will most voters begin to pay attention to the race, and the gay marriage issue.

The three also touched on the very heated U.S. Senate race in Ohio between incumbent Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Josh Mandel (R-Ohio), the current state treasurer.

CANTON, Ohio - Ohio treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel has returned $105,000 in campaign donations that are under federal investigation.

Mandel's campaign sent a letter this week to the Suarez Corporation Industries near Canton saying the money was returned to 21 employees of the direct-marketing firm. The letter says the money was returned out of an abundance of caution and called it an appropriate move until the investigation is complete.

FBI investigators have questioned Suarez Corp. employees about combined donations totaling $100,000 each to Mandel and freshman U.S. Rep. James Renacci.

The Associated Press is looking at the positions that President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney have taken on small business issues. Here's where they stand on ways to help U.S. manufacturers:

ROMNEY'S POSITION:

Gov. Romney is committed to cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. This lower tax burden will enable manufacturing companies to reinvest more of their profits back into the company and offer higher wages to skilled workers.

Protecting the competitive edge of U.S. manufacturers will also require assertive trade policies that open new markets for American businesses and workers while stopping countries like China from cheating on their trade commitments. Gov. Romney will confront China over its intellectual property theft, its closed market and its currency manipulation and make clear to all countries that the United States embraces free trade but only with countries willing to play by the rules.

Acknowledging the importance of research and development to the manufacturing industry, Gov. Romney will also make permanent the R&D (research and development) credit. This credit promotes innovation in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries, and helps businesses plan their innovation spending. With a strong, permanent credit, companies will be able to invest for the future with confidence.

FACT CHECK: The vast majority of manufacturers are small businesses that wouldn't benefit from a cut in the corporate tax rate. According to 2008 Census figures, the most recent numbers available, nearly 99 percent of manufacturers had fewer than 500 employees. More than 80 percent of small businesses are either not corporations, or they're what are known as S corporations, according to the National Small Business Association. In all these cases, owners pay taxes on the business, at an individual rate that may be higher than the corporate rate.

At this event, held before an enthusiastic crowd of 2,500 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Obama reminded the crowd that Romney said “corporations are people,” while stumping in Iowa last August during the Republican primary. The president said there may be value in Romney’s experience in corporate buyouts, “but it’s not in the White House.”

He also noted that the former governor doesn’t talk about his record in Massachusetts.

Speaking directly to Iowans, Obama used local lingo to slam Romney: “Governor Romney came to Des Moines last week and warned of a prairie fire of debt,” he said. “But he left out some facts. His speech was more like a cow pie of distortion.”

Then he quipped, “I don’t know whose record he twisted the most – mine or his.”

I guess someone has to call Romney on his lies because the media will not do its job.

President Barack Obama holds a narrow advantage over presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney in three of the most pivotal presidential battleground states -- Florida, Ohio and Virginia -- according to new NBC-Marist polls.

But in each of these states, Obama's share of the vote is below the 50 percent threshold usually considered safe haven for an incumbent president, and Romney has narrowed the margin in these three battlegrounds since earlier this year.

In Florida and Virginia, Obama leads Romney by an identical four-point margin, 48 percent to 44 percent, among registered voters, including those who are undecided but leaning toward a particular candidate.

Casinos are not like Starbucks stores: you really can't have one on every corner.

That's the word from David Cordish, whose company is opening a huge new casino next month in Maryland.

Yet Cordish warns that the expansion of casino gambling can't go on unchecked forever. A big problem is the attitude of politicians across the country who view casinos as free money.

"I don't know how we can control the politicians; they certainly don't understand the word `oversaturation,"' Cordish said. "They think you can have casinos like Starbucks."

If that attitude continues, Cordish said, "it's going to implode on them."

The expansion of casino gambling has continued rapidly over the last several years, nowhere more fiercely than in the Northeast. There is serious disagreement within the industry as to whether the market is oversaturated or whether there is room for further growth. But most agree it is tougher to do business in the Northeast casino market than it ever has been before.